As the sun set behind him, Duke Leto Atreides stood with Thufir Hawat and Duncan Idaho on either side of him, facing the expectant crowd that was gathered on a rocky area along the shore. Another spectacle to impress the populace before his troops went off to war.

While Rhombur and Gurney were gone, waiting was the hardest part.

Accompanied by liveried guards and representatives of Caladan’s major towns, Leto looked behind him, lifting his gaze toward the magnificent monument he had commissioned, one that would serve as a lighthouse and more. On an outthrust spit of land that bounded a narrow cove, the towering stone image of Paulus Atreides stood as a guardian of the coastline, a colossus visible to all ships approaching the docks. The statue, resplendent in matador costume, rested a paternal hand on the shoulder of the innocent, wide-eyed Victor. Paulus’s other hand held a self-feeding brazier filled with flammable oils.

The Old Duke had died in the bullring years before Victor’s birth, and so the pair had never actually met. Still, these two had been a tremendous influence on Leto: his political philosophy shaped by the unbending leadership of his father, and his compassion grown from love for his son.

Leto’s heart had a hollow feeling. Every day as he occupied himself with the business of running House Atreides, he felt alone without Jessica. He wished she could be with him now, to participate in the formal dedication of this spectacular new monument, though he supposed she might disapprove of the extravagance lavished on the memory of his father….

So far, he had received no message from Rhombur and Gurney, but by now he could only hope they had arrived safely on Ix and were beginning their dangerous work. House Atreides would soon be embroiled in much more than the unveiling of statues.

A temporary scaffold rose behind the statues. Two muscular youths scrambled to the top of the platform and waited above the brazier, torches in hand. Selected from a local seining crew, the acrobatic boys normally spent their days clambering around in the rigging like flying crabs. Their proud parents, as well as the captains of their boats, waited below with an Atreides honor guard.

Leto drew a deep breath. “All people of Caladan owe a debt of gratitude to those immortalized here: my father, the beloved Duke Paulus, and my son Victor, whose life was cut so tragically short. I have ordered the creation of this memorial so that all ships entering and leaving our harbor can remember these revered heroes.”

The business of being a Duke…

Leto raised his hand in a signal, and the last dying sunlight flashed off the signet ring on his finger. From their precarious position, the youths lowered their firebrands to the brazier, igniting the oils. Blue flames roared high without crackling or smoking, a silent torch in the palm of the statue’s giant hand.

Duncan held the Old Duke’s sword in front of him as if it were a royal scepter. Thufir remained grim and emotionless.

“Let the eternal flame never be extinguished. May their memories burn brightly forever.”

The crowd cheered, but the applause could not warm Leto’s heart as he remembered the quarrel he’d had with Jessica about naming their unborn child after his father. He wished she had been able to meet the old man, perhaps even to talk philosophy with him. Then maybe she would have a better opinion of Paulus, rather than focusing her ire on his policies, which Leto refused to change.

He raised a gray-eyed gaze to the implacable, idealized face of Paulus Atreides beside the achingly beautiful statue of the boy. The glow from the eternal torch cast a halo around their giant-sized features. Oh, how Leto missed his father, and his son. And Jessica most of all.

Please let my second child have a long and meaningful life, he thought, not entirely sure to whom he prayed.

Across the Imperium, on another balcony watching another sunset, Jessica thought about her Duke. She stared across the glorious architecture of the Imperial city, lifted her gaze to the competing colors of aurora curtains shimmering against the dusk.

How she longed to be with Leto. Her whole body ached for him.

Earlier in the day, Reverend Mother Mohiam and the newly arrived Medical Sister Yohsa had tested and prodded her, then assured Jessica that her pregnancy was proceeding normally as she entered her final trimester. In order to make certain the child was developing well, Yohsa had wanted to perform a sonogram, using machines that would send harmless pulses into Jessica’s womb and take holo-images of the baby growing inside. Technically, such procedures did not violate the Bene Gesserit strictures against tampering with children in utero, but Jessica had flatly refused the test, afraid it would reveal too much.

Seeing the surprised, annoyed expression on the Medical Sister’s face, Mohiam took Jessica’s side, showing rare compassion. “There will be no sonograms, Yohsa. Like all of us, Jessica has the ability to determine for herself if anything has gone wrong during the gestation period. We trust her.”

Jessica had looked up at her mentor and fought a stinging sensation in her eyes. “Thank you, Reverend Mother.” Mohiam’s gaze had searched for answers, though Jessica would not provide them, voluntarily or otherwise….

Now the Duke’s concubine sat alone on the balcony, blanketed in the Imperial sunset. She thought of the skies on Caladan, of the storms that came swiftly across the sea. Over the past several Standard Months, she and Leto had exchanged numerous letters and gifts, but such tokens were not nearly enough for either of them.

Though Kaitain held many treasures to amaze visitors, Jessica wanted to be back on her ocean world with the man she loved, at peace, leading her former life. What if the Sisterhood exiles me after our son is born? What if they kill the baby?

Jessica continued to make entries in the bound journal Lady Anirul had given to her, jotting down impressions and ideas, using a coded language of her own devising. She recorded her innermost thoughts, filling page after page with plans for her unborn son, and for her relationship with Leto.

In this process, however, she avoided writing about an increasingly unsettled feeling that she did not understand and which she hoped would go away. What if she had made a terribly wrong decision?